F-f-f-f-f-f-fashion

I am not what one would call a fashion plate. Generally, I'm happy enough if I'm clean, my clothes fit, I'm showing a tasteful amount of cleavage, my shoes are cute, and I don't want to sit in the closet and have a good cry. That said, I read magazines, watch TV, and live in society, so I have a basic understanding of what is "in", even if I don't follow it (I'm a big believer is anything that looks crappy on you is out of style, even if you bought it off a runway during fashion week) . I also have a full length mirror, which tells me with heart-wrenching honesty when I'm making a mistake (unlike the mirrors in Nordstroms, which magically make me appear tall, thin, sans muffin top, but with a tush).

This leads me up to a woman I saw at Publix today. I was so fascinated by her garb, that I followed her up and down several aisles. She was wearing fabulous wedge heel boots, the kind I've been coveting FOREVER but seemed to have missed the portion where she looked in a full length mirror. Or down, even. On the first aisle, I thought she had on black skinny jeans, tucked into the yummy boots, but with something weird, so I kept watching. Then, on the next aisle, I realized they weren't skinny jeans, they more like leggings with almost tuxedo-pants seams going up the side. On aisle three I got close enough to see that they weren't even leggings, but moderately opaque pantyhose. They weren't providing enough coverage to be termed "tights", and when she bent over a shelf, I could see that she wasn't wearing anything under them (a lesson that nothing good comes from stalking). Did she not notice that her skin was clearly visible through the hose? Did she pose in the mirror this morning and feel awesome about herself? I really wonder about that and while I utterly celebrate those with the confidence to wear whatever makes their little hearts feel happy, I sometimes ponder over where confidence ends and delusion sets in.

HOT

No, I don't just look extra fabulous today (unless you think bloated and kinda squishy looks great). I would conservatively estimate the temperature in my office is 985 degrees. Farenheit. I am shvitizing my balls off. I have a fan on, and it's just moving some tepid air around. No one else seems to find it overly warm. 38 would be too young for hot flashes (and they don't last for two hours, right?). It's OCTOBER 28th...where is fall??? Here fally fally....here fally fally.

Urg

No, I didn't leave off the "e". It's just URG (hard "gee" sound at the end). That's how I feel. Just a rainy, stressy, icky day where I would be PERFECTLY happy to be snuggled on the sofa with the furry monster, watching asinine TV, and eating a snack that would both make me fatter and send my intestines into an uproar.

I look GREAT in Green.

Today I was parked in front of my house idling the engine while I checked my email and it occurred to me that I would need a size 67 shoe to contain my carbon footprint. I don't get the newspaper (I hate how they smell) and I don't drink soda so I figured that I was already helping by limiting my post-consumer waste. I even buy the recycled paper towels and toilet paper, occasionally remember to bring my own reusable shopping bags to the grocery, and understand how 20oz plastic Coke bottles become fabric (which is crazy cool!) so I'm practically Captain Planet, right? Turns out that I'm not. Without even thinking about it, I threw away two yellow pages and a fat stack of phone books in a cleaning frenzy, I don't think to recycle my work papers unless I happen to be standing in front of the recycling bin, and I do things like sit in my car with the engine and ac/heat (depending on the season) and read emails and talk on the phone.

I'm going to work on that.

Callie, the Furry Monster

At PetSmart the other night, a woman told me that Callie is the most beautiful dog she's ever seen. I had no choice but to agree completely. I love my dog. Let me rephrase that. I LOVE my dog. I've attached some pictures because she's just that cute.

Ramblings from a semi-sane person

I don't really have a cohesive "theme" today...just some random musings (musings sounds better than bizarre stream of consciousness that I'm trapping you into reading). Also, I like the band Muse a lot. They really appeal to my remaining teen angst. That's right - I'm now thirty-eighteen and therefore entitled to my teen angst. I may re-read the Twilight saga. (don't add it together, thirty-eighteen is now a word in the lexicon of frannieland and I'm WAY not ready for 48). I do feel a bit of angst for my rapidly approaching forties, but I felt a solid year of stress about turning 30 and my 30s have been nothing short of amazingly wonderful (so here's hoping).

I woke up this morning at 5:30. It's SATURDAY. Why don't I wake up perkily at 5:30 (or 6:00. or 6:30. or 7:00) during the week? I can barely drag myself out of bed during the week and I'm lucky enough to like my job so I don't really see a connection there. I had a very productive morning...some quality Callie time, got an oil change, went to the Garden Hills yard sale (40 homes had yard sales - it was great...got a buffet, buffet lamps, and an urn for sticks). Then I came home and took a surprise nap (It wasn't really all that surprising though...I took off my shoes and curled up on the sofa with a blanket). Then I got my fabulous neighbors to help me bring the buffet in. Many kudos to Katie, for never being offended when I knock on their door and tell her that I need a man. Even more gold stars for Nick, who not only helped with schlepping and didn't seem horrified by how messy my house is (I'm having a bad goldfish in a cowboy hat week - if that reference doesn't make sense to you, watch this youtube link - unfortunately, this sometimes sums up my house. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR8IXmF1Rjw&feature=related), but noticed that there were SPIDER EGGS - you read that correctly - SPIDER EGGS festooned on the underside of the buffet and he went and got his super-heavy-duty vacuum and got rid of all of them. Now that's more than neighborly!

After getting the buffet spiffed up, I took Callie to get micro-chipped, and then just took her on a nice long drive. The dog park was too muddy and empty, so I just hit the road with the windows down and let her ears fly in the breeze. She looks so happy with her head out the window that thinking of it is still making me feel all warm and smiley inside.

Balloon Boy (aka BB, because it now nauseates me to use the word "balloon")

Really America?? Really? As evidence that America is going the way of the once-great Roman Empire (you know, that area with lots of ruins that doesn't even prented to be a superpower?) there is this bizarre media obsession with this freak family who wants to be on TV. Hey family - you were on TV. Big whoop. If you polled 100 people I bet you would find that lots of them have been on TV or in a movie at some point, even briefly. BB & co - take your 15 minutes and disappear gracefully. Media outlets - please allow this to happen.

There's lots going on in this country and in the world (both good and bad) that doesn't involve fame hungry parents who whore their kids out. Tune into the real news, or at least don't tune into the dumb stuff like BB. Listen to some music. Read a book. Have a deep conversation with your sister about why you're so screwed in the head (a personal fave of mine). Just stop paying credence to the BBs, Gosselins, Ocotmoms, unfortunate people in persistant vegative states, and Elian Gonzalez so MAYBE the media will clue in.

Rant over. Thanks for listening!

Why am I so screwed in the head?

While this heading could apply to MANY areas of my life, I have a particular topic on that tonight. Books. Sweet, comforting, friendly books. As part of my "change the house around without going crazy redecorating and spend money I don't have" initiative, I'm working on decluttering myself. Here's hoping that this will (somehow) also lead to a less cluttered mind. My biggest clutter area is books. My townhouse is approximately 1500 square feet. I own approximately two billion books. That math does not work out harmoniously. I get that. I know that paperback books aren't lovely additions to any decor. Here's my sticking point...I completely HEART my books. Until I started to really weed through them, I didn't realize the extent of my attachment.

Book background...I love to read. I never disliked reading, but somehow when I hit Judy Blume age, my brain completely latched on. I escalated quickly to Danielle Steel novels (not sure why this was considered appropriate reading material for a 9 year old, but young adult fiction didn't really exist in 1980 and once you were out of picture books you kinda graduated to whatever your mom had around). I realized sometime in college, when I was re-reading some of that delightful trash, that there was no way I understood the somewhat veiled "adult" content of the love scenes (of course by that age I found them laughably mild). My entire adult life, I've read everything I can get my hands on, 3 to 4 books a week, with a heavy emphasis on fiction (I have reality for my non-fiction, so I don't always feel compelled to invite it any further into frannieland). I have been in more book clubs than I care to count (they don't seem to be for me...in my experience they have generally been exercises in pretension. Come on people - read the good stuff, but don't act like you're too good to pick up a James Patterson novel).

Now I have books spread all over the floor of my bedroom, the bed in the guest room, and I really want to safely bundle them all back up onto their respective messy shelves and let them be. However...I have to keep reminding myself that change is good (right? RIGHT??)

Weekend (not in New England, but that's a fave sappy song)

I'm a planner by nature. Sometimes my plan is to do nothing, but I'm still making a plan for that (I've stopped putting "sit on sofa and mindlessly catch up on dvr'd shows on an actual to-do list though). This weekend, I had a vast assortment of plans, ranging from fun/social to drudgery. See Friday night's post for part 1 of the drudgery. Part 2 has been today and consisted of going to the office for 4+ hours, cleaning it up (I was mildly surprised that I didn't find a pack of wolves in there...it was looking like their natural habitat). I've also been baking, but am doing it more clumsily than I normally would, so I'm dialing back that ambition a bit. Now I'm wondering about my planning nature. Perhaps if I planned to be tidier, I would be tidier. I do like to follow my to-do list. Hmm. Food for thought. I haven't started on laundry or cooking yet. Still plenty of time for that. I did do my very favorite part of Sunday...changing my sheets. It's not so much the changing (I'm not on crack) but it's the sliding into bed Sunday night and being ensconced in cool, crisp, sweetly fresh sheets. That is just toe-wiggling good.

On Saturday afternoon, a home re-designer came over. Her name is Stacey Murphy and I thought she was terrific. Her entire business is making the stuff already in your house WORK, not figuring out a way to impose her taste and collect large fees. It was so incredibly beneficial to me to have a fresh non-family/non-friend eye on my stuff. I can't wait to start implementing her suggestions. I do feel a bit embarrassed that I needed some of the common sensical suggestions, like putting a basket on top of the fridge to conceal all the miscellany up there. Why didn't that occur to me on my own? What decorating/organization gene am I missing that made me need to pay some one (a fabulous deal from groupon.com, but still) to tell me something that should be bred into the bone? Perhaps I won't question that and just be glad that Stacey is out there and that I now have her in my arsenal! Since I'm shamelessly plugging Stacey, here is her website: www.homestretchredesigns.com. Stacey - if you read this, I'm really going to work on thinning out the books, but it's HARD.

This is a first. Actually, it's THE first.

My first blog, that is. I'm not sure why tonight is the night. If I was smart, I would have gone to bed a half hour ago. Lots of things in frannieland seem to start with the phrase "if I was smart" (explanation of frannieland for those not yet in the know....frannieland is the world I live in. It's the same world everyone else lives in, just from my POV. It's pretty normal, except for when it isn't) . It's Friday night, 10/9/09. I stayed in tonight and assigned myself the ambitious job of cleaning out my bathroom cabinets and drawers. Yeah, I'm that kind of cool. Turns out I don't need to buy soap for about 4 more years. Lever 2000 doesn't go bad, does it?